1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to disk drives, and in particular to a disk drive cover with top and bottom layers electrically grounded with first and second flaps, and a method of manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The typical hard disk drive includes a head disk assembly (HDA) and a printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) attached to a disk drive base of the HDA. The head disk assembly includes the disk drive base, a cover, at least one magnetic disk, a spindle motor for rotating the disk, and a head stack assembly (HSA) that includes a transducer head supported by a slider for reading and writing data from and to the disk.
The spindle motor includes a spindle motor hub that is rotatably attached to the disk drive base and supports at least one disk. The head stack assembly includes an actuator assembly including the sliders and a flex circuit cable assembly attached to the actuator assembly. The actuator assembly includes an actuator that is rotatably coupled to the disk drive base and is used to read and write data from and to the disk. A plurality of fasteners, such as metal screws, are disposed about a periphery of the disk drive cover and engage the periphery of the disk drive base for attachment of the disk drive cover with the disk drive base. In addition, as support for the actuator, a fastener is engaged to a pivot bearing cartridge through the disk drive cover. Another fastener is used to support the spindle motor and is engaged to the spindle motor also through the disk drive cover.
A topic of concern is mitigating the effects of various vibrations within the disk drive due to the many dynamic components. In this regard, disk drive cover designs have included a layered configuration with an intermediate layer being formed of a damping material disposed between rigid metal layers. As a result the various layers may become electrically insulated from each other. Various configurations have been implemented to electrically ground such rigid metal layers so as to mitigate against any undesirable static discharge events. Grounding configurations have included use of metal fasteners (such as screws) through the various layers to provide electrical grounding of such layers to the disk drive base and other disk drive components (e.g., a pivot bearing cartridge or a spindle motor shaft). However, the lowermost layer may be coated with an electrically insulative coating (such as e-coat) for cleanliness purposes within the disk drive. This would make grounding of such lowermost layer difficult. Other electrical grounding configurations have included selectively exposing the metal layers to each other by not including a portion of damping material at such locations. However, this would preclude utilization of prefabricated solid sheets of laminated metal and damping material that may be readily stamped to form disk drive cover units. Accordingly, there is a need for an improved disk drive cover configuration in comparison to the prior art.